


And They Left Me For Dead

by seularen



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Always Female Tony, Background Pepper Knows All, F/M, Female Tony Stark, For Varying Definitions Of Bros, Implied Relationships, Iron Man 3, PTSD, Post Credits, Science Bros, Temperament, Very Implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:35:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seularen/pseuds/seularen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kiss is a fight; Bruce’s larger mouth cover hers, but she pushes back with chapped skin, rubbing against his sensitive lips, and it’s bruising, and it refuses breath, and it’s insistent and vital and thrilling. It’s free-falling from a plane: wind rushing, ground imminent. His heart wonders how this could feel so much like dying when the rest him finally feels alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And They Left Me For Dead

_Temperament_.

It sounds like an excuse to Tony, because it is: It’s supposed to excuse Bruce falling asleep and not paying attention. Bruce is full of these convenient dismissals.

But whatever, she can laugh it off. It’s not like this is the first time someone’s tuned out her rambling. Tony’s not bothered.

Except she really, _really_ is.

It wouldn’t even be a big deal, except there are some issues of trust here. Historically, trust hasn’t panned out so well for the Stark family. Tony had needed someone to talk to, but thanks to aforementioned issues, the list of people she could talk to had been short. Made shorter by hospital regulations and military expeditions. It wasn't necessity that drove her to Bruce, necessarily, but it wasn't like she had an abundance of options.

Still, there's a reason she chooses Bruce's couch over some much sexier alternatives. Some of the rambling epic that included panic attacks and multiple crises of confidence and befriending a ten-year-old kid and blowing up her _entire life’s work_ — some of that, she hasn’t even told Pepper. Doesn’t intend to, because it’d just make Pepper worry when she needs to be resting. Tony wants nothing more than for Pepper to be firing on all cylinders, but until such time as Pepper is back up on her homicidal five-inch heels ruling the world, unimportant shit like Tony’s emotional turmoil can take a backseat. That’s just the way it goes, because Pepper comes first. Always.

That’s why Tony has a roster. The roster is entitled: _People Who Can Handle My Shit_ , and it consists of Pepper, Rhodey, Bruce, Happy — in that order, with Rhodey and Bruce fighting for second and third. Steve and the other Avengers are slowly edging their way up there, too, which is purposeful of course, Tony didn’t spend weeks designing them all individual floors for _fun_. Well, okay, fun too. But mostly she wanted them close. Tony understands engineering, and she’s putting together a machine to rival Ford’s honestly overrated assembly line.

That’s why they work, all of them together. They work because they’re all together.

So she’s bothered, here lying on Bruce’s requisitioned couch. Bothered, because this is supposed to go a certain way.

She supposed to unload her story, and then her hands will stop shaking. Bruce is supposed to listen with that stoic face he pulls off so well, nod a little, maybe make a few interested noises in the back of his throat that’ll make Tony want to jump him, and then, when Tony knew he was really listening, she could finally find words for what's been keeping her up. She could maybe cough up some of the paralytic fear that’s been murmuring in her heart, because she’s heard Bruce might know something about that.

This is supposed to be a process, and Bruce isn’t supposed to leave her here on her own.

But these aren’t really things Tony thinks — not consciously, not at any actionable level. All of the above? They’re impulses, the kind that led her to this couch at 5am after a solid twenty-seven hours of no sleep. She lets those impulses pull her like a leash, because genius is well and good, but a well-honed instinct is just as good as ten points of IQ (and she has more than ten to spare). Instinct told her to seek out Bruce in the same way it told her to look at her dad’s old videos when she was dying. Yeah it was five in the morning, and yeah she hadn’t talked to Bruce since she’d had her surgery. It was pretty risky showing up like this. But he let her in, and that was all the permission she needed.

So when she looks over to find him rubbing sleep from his eyes, Tony’s… well. She doesn’t know the word for it. Speechlessness is never a great sign, for a Stark.

She can’t express any of her frustration, but its bitter taste fills her mouth. She tries to swallow it, smile around it. When she responds her voice is falsely cheerful; her words run together, like the spaces in between might try to speak her truths for her.

The nonchalance is usually more convincing.

Usually she isn’t so invested in being called out.

 

 

Temperament, Bruce says. It’s an excuse, yes, but more an attempt at apology. He can tell Tony doesn’t see the difference. Not surprising; apologies were a pretty foreign concept to Tony Stark.

Bruce catches the grimace Tony tries to pass as a smile. He doesn’t know why Tony thinks he won’t notice. No, that’s not true. He knows exactly why. He’s used all these defenses before. Placidity, acceptance, denial — anything is better than confrontation, when your father’s drunk and looking for reasons. So Tony’s laying on his couch and pretending not to care, and Bruce feels like the worst kind of person, even though all he’s been trying to do is keep hold of his control.

Tony starts rambling again, something about a nanny. A kind of frazzled despair comes over Bruce, and he draws his hand down his face, leaning back in the chair. Momentary existential crises are pretty typical for the guy who doesn’t know which pronouns to use when talking about his alter-ego-pseudo-self. Still. He’d rather not play this game.

“Okay,” Bruce interrupts, lifting his head back up, “Okay, stop.”

Surprisingly, that works.

“I can’t,” Bruce continues. It’s the kind of interjection that implies elaboration, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stands. Tony sits up automatically, making room for Bruce next to her. “I _can’t_ listen to this,” Bruce says. He sits, leaving an inch of space between them. There has to be distance, because he needs to do this: He has to look into her eyes and make sure she’s watching. “Do you know how angry it’d make me?”

“Uhm,” Tony says, intelligently, “Very?”

(In her defense, Bruce moved to sit next to her close enough to smell the sandalwood soap on his skin. She watches his crows feet deepen into little tributaries, all leading to the warm kindness in his eyes. When she leans back a little, she gets the whole effect: Bruce watching her, tender and sad and forgiving. A skittish laugh gurgles up; she wants to brush off that look, and never be without it.)

“Very,” Bruce repeats, sardonic. “Yeah. For a start.” He sighs. “You just told me about how you nearly died, more than a dozen times. About how someone — that asshole Killian tried to kill you and… Pepper.” Bruce breathes. “He stalked her, kidnapped her, injected her with an offshoot of the Super Soldier Serum?” He has to frame it as a question. A statement would be too definitive. He’s barely in control as it is. “You think I was sleeping, Tony? You think that has no effect on me? You, what? You—”

Bruce is disintegrating. His rage is corrosive, eating through rational, linear thoughts. His gasps leave him no room to ask for help, but Tony hears him anyway. She reaches out, a hand on the back of his neck pulling him forward, pressing their foreheads together.

“Hey,” she says, “Breathe, big guy. I’m here. I’m fine.”

He closes his eyes, rather than meeting her gaze so close."You're fine. Okay. And Pepper?"

"Fine. More than fine."

The hindpart of Bruce’s brain doesn’t believe her. The _rational_ part of Bruce doesn’t believe her. Fine isn’t an adjective he’d use to describe Tony Stark _or_ Pepper Potts. Since knowing them, the unchecked waves of concern had tested every one of Bruce’s levees. He can feel her hair tickle against his. She’s so close, so alive — so fragile.

“Really?” he asks, because he’s weak. Because he cares so much he doesn’t know whose voice he’s using when he asks for the reassurance.

“I am. See? Totally fine. One piece. More or less. More, now, than less, since—” Tony pulls back to tap the place on her chest where the reactor used to be. Bruce’s eyes follow the motion of her fingers.

“Did they…?”

“Yeah, science finally caught up with me. Only took a hundred years, or whatever.” There's a mutual scoff, as they both dismiss the scientific efforts of the age. But then there's a pause, because they've always been thinking the same thing. They're thinking: Bruce could have caught up to Tony's efforts long ago. Tony could have caught up to Bruce's expriments. If they'd known.

“I would’ve helped with this," Bruce says. "If you’d asked.” They both know Bruce isn’t referring to his scientific expertise.

“You were on vacation. I totally had it handled.”

“Totally,” Bruce repeats, sarcasm curling the word at its corners. “Which is why you’re here now.”

“I’m here now because Pepper’s incapacitated.”

“ _Thanks._ ”

“Listen, your napping doesn’t give you the high ground here.”

“I just told you—” except he realizes he hasn’t. Like every other time, Tony distracted him. “Tony. I was listening. I—” he’s legitimately upset, concern cutting him deep. The space between their bodies goes out of its way to undermine him, the distance too far to express his apology and too close to suggest objectivity. Tony looks up into his countenance wrinkled with remorse and immediately starts protesting.

“Hey, no, I know, it’s—”

But no. No more excuses. Bruce has to cut off whatever she’s about to say. He has to communicate in ways she’ll understand. So he kisses her, fervent and insistent. The kiss is a fight; Bruce’s larger mouth cover hers, but she pushes back with chapped skin, rubbing against his sensitive lips, and it’s bruising, and it refuses breath, and it’s insistent and vital and thrilling. It’s free-falling from a plane: wind rushing, ground imminent. His heart wonders how this could feel so much like dying when the rest him finally feels alive. Tony’s hands are all over him: down his back, up his chest, cupping his jaw, tangled in his hair. She’s good. God, she’s so good.

Too good — Bruce pulls back. This isn’t the point. Tony groans, complaining. Bruce kisses her lips briefly: an apology and an entreaty. Tony hears him. She always has, even when Bruce hadn’t thought he’d been speaking.

He speaks now, spilling truth: “I. I don’t have the temperament to listen. Psychiatry teaches some kind of distance. I— I don’t know how I could ever distance myself. I never could with Betty, even before…" There's an audible click of teeth. "Has Pepper ever told you about my college transcripts?" At Tony's blank expression, Bruce nods, "Well, it’s not much different now. You asked why I couldn't pay attention. It's — I don’t know what listening to this would do to my control." Bruce nods to himself, angling his face down to hide his grotesque shadow of a smile. "I don’t want to find out."

Tony thought she'd wanted to see his expression. She's always been curious, and never frightened. But suddenly, in the middle of their quiet revelations, he looks up. When he'd looked down, he'd been the Bruce Banner she'd always known. Now, with his focus pinpointed on her, Tony can't help but sit up straighter. _Hey, big guy. You're in there somewhere, I know you are. And I know you trust me._

Maybe it's all bullshit. Maybe she's fooling herself. But as she's thinking very loudly to the Hulk, Bruce seems to be calming down. She's totally willing to chalk it up to coincidence (for as long as Bruce seems legitimately unstable). Until then:

"I do." Tony nuzzles her nose against his neck. "I want to find out."

That earns a scoff from Bruce, even as he's leaning into the touch. "I like this apartment. I’d rather not replace it."

"I would," Tony says, instinctively. They're wrapped around each other now. "I could, replace it." Her breaths are moist against the skin of his neck. Bruce doesn't move. That in itself is incentive.

"Yeah, but," Bruce breathes into her hair, failing to keep his hips from rolling against her leg, "Thats. That's not the point." 

Panting. Sharp inhales as they shove pants off each other. The couch's narrow frame is inconvenient, among other things. 

"Is the point that you're still not hugging it out with your other half?" She asks. Bruce isn't taking the abuse calmly; he's on top of her, biting the skin right above her collarbone, thrusting shallowly against her. 

"Is that the point?" She insists, even though her question is whispered agaisnt his ear. Tony can't give up the higher ground, she never will. Bruce loves and resents her for that, like any good scientist. 

There's a pause. There's enough of a pause that Tony audibly swallows, and Bruce can feel it against his skin. Bruce doesn't feel triumphant at all. The couch is too small for the both of them. 

"You don't want to know the point." That's the worst thing to say, because of course Tony is going to—

"Oh, I don't? Please," Tony says, not disappointing, "tell me what else I don't want; this should be interesting." 

The standoff between them is pretty extraordinary, considering the inch or less of space between them. Tony fills it all with resentful anger; Bruce fills it with desperation.

"Okay. You—" Bruce grimaces, "

((And they left me for dead, and I never did forget.))

 _Temperament_.

It sounds like an excuse to Tony, because it is: It’s supposed to excuse Bruce falling asleep and not paying attention. Bruce is full of these convenient dismissals.

But whatever, she can laugh it off. It’s not like this is the first time someone’s tuned out her rambling. Tony’s not bothered.

Except she really, _really_ is.

It wouldn’t even be a big deal, except there are some issues of trust here. Historically, trust hasn’t panned out so well for the Stark family. Tony had needed someone to talk to, but thanks to aforementioned issues, the list of people she could talk to had been short. Some of the rambling epic that included panic attacks and multiple crises of confidence and befriending a ten-year-old kid and blowing up her _entire life’s work_ — some of that, she hasn’t even told Pepper. Doesn’t intend to, because it’d just make Pepper worry when she needs to be resting. Tony wants nothing more than for Pepper to be firing on all cylinders, but until such time as Pepper is back up on her homicidal five-inch heels ruling the world, unimportant shit like Tony’s emotional turmoil can take a backseat. That’s just the way it goes, because Pepper comes first. Always.

That’s why Tony has a roster. The roster is entitled: People To Handle My Shit, and it consists of Pepper, Rhodey, Bruce, Happy — in that order. Steve and the other Avengers slowly edging their way up there, too, which is purposeful of course, Tony didn’t spend weeks designing them all individual floors for _fun_. Well, okay, fun too. But mostly she wanted them close. Tony understands engineering, and she’s putting together a machine to rival Ford’s honestly overrated assembly line.

That’s why they work, all of them together. They work because they’re all together.

So she’s bothered, here lying on Bruce’s requisitioned couch. Bothered, because this is supposed to go a certain way.

She supposed to unload her story, and then her hands will stop shaking. Bruce is supposed to listen with that stoic face he pulls off so well, nod a little, maybe make a few interested noises in the back of his throat that’ll make Tony want to jump him, and then, when Tony knew he was really listening, she could finally find words for the fear that’s been keeping her up. She could maybe cough up some of the paralytic fear that’s been murmuring in her heart, because she’s heard Bruce might know something about that.

This is supposed to be a process, and Bruce isn’t supposed to leave her here on her own.

But these aren’t really things Tony thinks — not consciously, not at any actionable level. All of the above? They’re impulses, the kind that led her to this couch at 5am after a solid twenty-seven hours of no sleep. She lets those impulses lead her, because genius is well and good, but a well-honed instinct is just as good as ten points of IQ (and she has more than ten to spare). Instinct told her to seek out Bruce in the same way it told her to look at her dad’s old videos when she was dying. Yeah it was five in the morning, and yeah she hadn’t talked to Bruce since she’d had her surgery. It was pretty risky showing up like this, but he let her in, and that was all the permission she needed.

So when she looks over to find him rubbing sleep from his eyes, Tony’s… well. She doesn’t know the word for it. Which is never a great sign, for a Stark.

She can’t express any of her frustration, but its bitter taste fills her mouth. She tries to swallow it, smile around it. When she responds her voice is falsely cheerful; her words run together, like the spaces in between might try to speak her truths for her.

The nonchalance is usually more convincing.

Usually she isn’t so invested in being called out.

 

 

Temperament, Bruce says. It’s an excuse, yes, but more an attempt at apology. He can tell Tony doesn’t see the difference. Not surprising; apologies were a pretty foreign concept to Tony Stark.

Bruce catches the grimace Tony tries to pass as a smile. He doesn’t know why Tony thinks he won’t notice. No, that’s not true. He knows exactly why. He’s used all these defenses before. Placidity, acceptance, denial — anything is better than confrontation, when your father’s drunk and looking for reasons. So Tony’s laying on his couch and pretending not to care, and Bruce feels like the worst kind of person, even though all he’s been trying to do is keep hold of his control.

Tony starts rambling again, something about a nanny. A kind of frazzled despair comes over Bruce, and he draws his hand down his face, leaning back in the chair. Momentary existential crises are pretty typical for the guy who doesn’t know which pronouns to use when talking about his alter-ego-pseudo-self. Still. He’d rather not play this game.

“Okay,” Bruce interrupts, lifting his head back up, “Okay, stop.”

Surprisingly, that works.

“I can’t,” Bruce continues. It’s the kind of interjection that implies elaboration, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stands. Tony sits up automatically, making room for Bruce next to her. “I _can’t_ listen to this,” Bruce says. He sits, leaving an inch of space between them. There has to be distance, because he needs to do this: He has to look into her eyes and make sure she’s watching. “Do you know how angry it’d make me?”

“Uhm,” Tony says, intelligently, “Very?”

(In her defense, Bruce moved to sit next to her close enough to smell the sandalwood soap on his skin. She watches his crows feet deepen into little tributaries, all leading to the warm kindness in his eyes. When she leans back a little, she gets the whole effect: Bruce watching her, tender and sad and forgiving. A skittish laugh gurgles up; she wants to brush off that look, and never be without it.)

“Very,” Bruce repeats, sardonic. “Yeah. For a start.” He sighs. “You just told me about how you nearly died, more than a dozen times. About how someone — that asshole Killian tried to kill you and… Pepper.” Bruce breathes. “He stalked her, kidnapped her, injected her with an offshoot of the Super Soldier Serum?” He has to frame it as a question. A statement would be too definitive. He’s barely in control as it is. “You think I was sleeping, Tony? You think that has no effect on me? You, what? You—”

Bruce is disintegrating. His rage is corrosive, eating through rational, linear thoughts. His gasps leave him no room to ask for help, but Tony hears him anyway. She reaches out, a hand on the back of his neck pulling him forward, pressing their foreheads together.

“Hey,” she says, “Breathe, big guy. I’m here. I’m fine.”

He closes his eyes. The hindpart of Bruce’s brain doesn’t believe her. The _rational_ part of Bruce doesn’t believe her. _Fine_ isn’t an adjective he’d use to describe Tony Stark. Since knowing her, the unchecked waves of concern had tested every one of Bruce’s levees. He can feel her hair tickle against his skin. She’s so close, so alive — so fragile.

“Really?” he asks, because he’s weak. Because he cares so much he doesn’t know whose voice he’s using when he asks for the reassurance.

“I am. See? Totally fine. One piece. More or less. More, now, than less, since—” Tony pulls back to tap the place on her chest where the reactor used to be. Bruce’s eyes follow the motion of her fingers.

“Did they…?”

“Yeah, science finally caught up with me. Only took a hundred years, or whatever.”

There's enough of a pause to imply just how grotesque Bruce finds that statement. It makes Tony rankle. She's saved by Bruce's interjection:

“I would’ve helped with this. If you’d asked.” They both know Bruce isn’t referring to his scientific expertise.

“You were on vacation. I totally had it handled.”

“Totally,” Bruce repeats, sarcasm curling the word at its corners. “Which is why you’re here now.”

“I’m here now because Pepper’s incapacitated.”

“ _Thanks._ ”

“Listen, your napping doesn’t give you the high ground here.”

“I just told you—” except he realizes he hasn’t. Like every other time, Tony distracted him. “Tony. I was listening. I—” he’s legitimately upset, concern cutting him. The space between them goes out of its way to undermine him, the distance too far to express his apology and too close to suggest objectivity. Tony looks up into his countenance wrinkled with remorse and immediately starts protesting.

“Hey, no, I know, it’s—”

But no. No more excuses. Bruce has to cut off whatever she’s about to say. He has to communicate in ways she’ll understand. So he kisses her, fervent and insistent. The kiss is a fight; Bruce’s larger mouth cover hers, but she pushes back with chapped skin, rubbing against his sensitive lips, and it’s bruising, and it refuses breath, and it’s insistent and vital and thrilling. It’s free-falling from a plane: wind rushing, ground imminent. His heart wonders how this could feel so much like dying when the rest him finally feels alive. She pushes him down against the couch, and her weight on top of him feels right, in the way a solved equation feels right: solved within Euclid's geometry, but who knew what would happen beyond that? Tony’s hands are all over him: down his back, up his chest, cupping his jaw, tangled in his hair. She’s good. God, she’s so good.

Too good — Bruce pulls back. This isn’t the point. Tony groans, complaining. Bruce kisses her lips briefly: an apology and an entreaty. Tony hears him. She always has, even when Bruce hadn’t thought he’d been speaking.

He speaks now: “I. I don’t have the temperament to listen. Psychiatry teaches some kind of distance. I— I don’t know how I could ever distance myself. I never could with Betty, even before… Has Pepper ever told you about college?" Tony's blank stare gives him his answer. "Well, I wasn't exactly objective then, and it’s the same now. You wanted a sympathetic ear, but Tony — I don’t know what listening to this would do. I already..." Bruce stops. Smiles, the kind of smile that implies hating what one has to say next. "I don’t want to find out. I like this apartment. I’d rather not replace it."

"Why not?" Tony asks, rubbing her thigh against his outer waist. Her legs are wrapped around him, pushing him down against the couch, grinding against him. Tony wants control, but Bruce is her match, pushing himself up against her cunt, rolling his cock, letting his instinct carry him.

"Because," he murmurs, shallowly pushing up. "Because we've lost enough already." Instinct is dangerous, but this is Tony; she doesn't mind the occasional flash of green in his eyes.

"Fair," she manages, "That's fair," because she can't stop, not even when she's on top of him, not even when the advantage is clearly hers. she takes it all, and he loves that. she takes it with her hips, grinding bone into bone, extracting every precious sound from Bruce's lips. 

"You think you could fall asleep now?" She asks.

"Never said I did," Bruce says, a defiant smirk pulling his lip up. He can push against her, which is enough, knowing Tony. 

"Then you were, what, back there? Napping?" She's wet, he can feel it as she grinds against him. Christ. 

"Already told you, Stark." Bruce swallows. "Couldn't take the details. The other guy cares too much about you." Their eyes meet, and Tony moves so the tip of his cock nudges against her clit. He groans. Tony grins. The couch is too narrow for everything he wants to do.

"What does he think now?" she asks as she's rolling, taking him into her. The question will never be answered, because Bruce can't breathe. Every nerve he has screams, harmonizing with her own cries. For the first time this morning, they're speaking the same language. Bruce recognizes his own desire, but Tony is defining them both with her wet, open kisses and the roll of her hips.

"Tony." 

"Bruce." She's fucking him in earnest now, moving exactly how she wants, using him. He leans against the couch, taking her weight, absorbing every thrust of her fuck and rising up to meet her when he can. Mostly, it's a matter of letting Tony do what she wants. He's learned that, by now, and been rewarded for being a particularly quick study. It'd be patronizing, but Tony's rewards are... 

" _Tony_." 

"Fuck, Bruce, fuck," a whimper, "Yes,"

"Tony, I,"

"Fuck, fuck, yeah, just,"

"Tony. _Please_ ,"

"Oh, _god_ —"

 

 

And it doesn't surprise anyone that Tony never listens to Bruce's warnings about his temperament. But if Bruce is particularly forgiving of Tony's antics, no one but Pepper knows the real reason. Which is fine, anyway. 

He was never going to be a psychologist, but he's pretty sure this couch has enough issues to be its own patient, now.


End file.
